Collective apathy: alcohol and child abuse in the NT

The NT Government’s recent report on child protection, ‘Growing them Strong, Together ‘blames the three 'G's' - grog, ganga and gambling for the tsunami of child neglect and abuse in Indigenous communities in the Territory.

But equally to blame is collective apathy. What has been tolerated in Aboriginal communities would never have been tolerated in the major cities and towns of Australia.

On a recent trip to Western Australia I saw an Aboriginal woman sitting in the middle of the road. There was torrential rain and the gutters were overflowing with water. I watched as cars drove around her. Afterwards I thought about what I had seen and wondered if the same thing had occurred in a suburban street in Sydney would people have pulled over to see if she was okay?

This I think goes to the heart of the crisis facing so many Aboriginal communities today. No one seems to care when Aboriginal people lie paralytic in the street.

That alcohol is a significant problem in Indigenous communities is not a new insight. In the 2007 report on sexual abuse among Indigenous children, ‘Little Children are Sacred’, the authors concluded that unless alcoholism was conquered, there was little point in attending to any of the other worthwhile proposals in their report.

Likewise, if the alcohol epidemic in Aboriginal communities is not addressed, any measures to improve the child protection system in the Northern Territory will only be a temporary stop gap – a finger in the dyke of dysfunction.

In many remote communities, parents are too busy drinking to bother feeding their children or supervising their whereabouts. Not only are children neglected but they are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse because of their parents’ drinking. Kept up all night by alcohol parties, many children are too tired to go to school and their parents are often too hung-over to care or make them go.

Even before they are born, children are irrevocably damaged by the drinking patterns of their mother. Children born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) suffer from brain damage, behaviour disorders, and memory impairment. This is having a devastating impact on the maintenance of traditional Aboriginal culture, which is imparted orally and relies on a good memory.

Not all Indigenous communities are places of despair; there are a few that are rarely subjected to investigation by child protection authorities. Tellingly, these are also small outstations that have been dry since they were first established in the 1970s.

Cases of child abuse would be cut in half if fewer communities were in the grip of alcohol misuse. But just as there is no point having child protection laws if nobody enforces them, there is no point having alcohol restrictions if they are not enforced by police.

The ‘Growing them Stronger’ report describes how alcohol continues to be a problem in the 73 communities prescribed under the NT Intervention despite signage suggesting the problem no longer exists.

Police have been slow to respond to Aboriginal peoples concerns about alcohol use in their communities and there has not been the level of government support needed to enforce the alcohol restrictions.

More successful are the restrictions in Queensland and Western Australia, where the driving force for change was local and where police have been actively involved in working with community members to enforce the restrictions.

In Fitzroy Crossing there has been a marked reduction in the number of alcohol-related tasks attended to by police and a significant drop off in the number alcohol-related emergencies at the hospital.

Five years after alcohol restrictions were implemented in 19 Indigenous communities in Queensland, hospitals and police report that assaults and domestic violence have decreased markedly. School attendance has also increased. In Aurukun, one of the larger Indigenous communities in the Cape, school attendance has increased by nearly 20 per cent in the last two years.

It is clear that for alcohol restrictions to work, Government needs to listen and respond to the concerns and solutions that communities have. Promisingly, a recent report by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) on the Intervention indicates that the federal government plans to abolish universal restrictions and adopt individual alcohol management plans with communities.

The findings of the ‘Growing them Stronger, Together’ report shows that governments cannot continue to spin their wheels. Before another three years pass, and another report is written highlighting the same sorry tales of abuse and dysfunction, government and communities should, as the title of the report suggests, work together to bring about change. Only when we stop being immune to scenes of drunken misery will the epidemics of alcohol and child abuse be overcome.

You have no doubt been hearing a lot about the Paris Agreement and know that it pertains to climate change, but are too embarrassed at this stage to ask for an overall explanation of what it's all about.